Thursday, June 2, 2011

More Molds With Silicone Rubber - Part One

Today's post will show you the second mold making option you have with Environmental Technology Inc. This time we will work with a liquid (yesterday I showed you the putty) that you mix to make your molds. To start, you need a few containers to hold the liquid silicone rubber. Yogurt containers are my favorite and all my molds are the exact same size. I cut the bottoms off and use the containers with the lid as the new bottom. Then you need to gather the items you want to make molds of.

These vintage items are too heavy to wear on a necklace or use on a paper project. If I make a mold of them I can use resin to make my duplicates which will be much lighter. You need to secure the object you are molding to the bottom of the container with hot glue or a temporary clay. This will stop the item from moving when the liquid silicone rubber is poured over them.

45 Minute to 1 hour working time, 24 hour cure. Cure rate can be adjusted by applying heat.

Produces extremely fine detail from original, no shrinkage.

Self releasing, no mold release agent required for most applications.

High heat range, up to 400º F.

Strong flexible re-useable molds.

No vacuum equipment required.

This is a two part system. You mix equal amounts of Part "A" and "B."

Then you pour the liquid rubber into the containers. I let this cure for 24 hours before I go peaking to see how my mold turned out. This is when working on the yogurt lid comes in handy. You pop off the lid and push out your new mold.

Here is one of the cured molds. As always, I pour some Envirotex Lite into the mold to test it and clean it before I start with a new project. Tomorrow, I'll be able to show you some results!